Field Notes

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Twitchell Rice: 2009-09-22 09:30:00 (DOY 265)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others:

Summary: Boards pulled and field drained, Three 50W panels installed, Connected three panels to big batteries

Twitchell
9/22/2009

Arrived about 9:30 PDT. Warm, clear. Initially no wind, hardly a ripple on the canals. Later a light breeze built.

Boards have been pulled and the field has drained significantly. Water level is way down and the field is definitely more yellow, brown. Jim says water is still draining out of the field and there is some water visible in low spots but water is gone from most of the edges. Near Frank’s tower the water has gone down more than 6 inches.

The generator will run for the time being. Harvest is about 14 days away. They are actively trying to get the harvest equipment in by barge. After the rice is harvested, the straw will be mulched and left in the field for re-flood. The generator may be used for the re-flooding and we may have power from it piecemeal until then (3-4 more weeks).

I installed three 50W panels on top of the box and charge regulator inside the box. I remove the four deep cycle car batteries from the original tower site and installed them on top of the box, under the solar panels. The 12VDC was down shortly while I moved the data loggers, sonic, LI7500 and web cam to the solar system. Now, if the generator goes down we loose the LGR, pump and computer (web cam images), data loggers should continue to collect everything except CH4.

At the original tower site I connected three panels (Atsushi borrowed one, other two disconnected) to the big batteries that Steve Deveral loaned us. Frank’s tower is running on this power right now. I killed five big black widows in the battery compartment.

LGR readings:
13:15
1.8929ppm
8000 to 20000ppm – very large fluctuations in H2O even in Li7500
367.1133ppm
18.220usec
27.27C
138.81Torr – adjusted back to 144.00Torr

5 photos found

20090922TW_DrainedRice1.jpg ( 2009-09-22 12:48:41 ) Full size: 2048x1536
L-square to scale water line on rice plants